


red (as blood)

by owlinaminor



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Inner Demons, dealing with pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 18:45:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1163200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How do the monsters do it?  How do they sleep at night?  How do they keep from shattering into a million bloody pieces?</p>
            </blockquote>





	red (as blood)

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as me trying to justify a side-pairing I came across in a couple of CS fics and thought was cute, and somehow became this sprawling, somewhat philosophical mess. Oops. (It's just that I love these characters and their story arcs. They fit together so well and I have a lot of feelings.)

We create our own demons.

Tell yourself this will be your saving grace, carve a prayer out from your flesh and hold it suspended in midair, red and still beating.  Maybe you can save something, maybe you can preserve a soul that fell years ago, but all magic (and science) comes with a price and in the end, you will face your demon and he will be so hard to kill.

You will face your demon and she will be so hard to kill, because she is only a reflection of yourself, bleeding out upon the cold concrete.

* * *

He’s always been a frequent visitor of her bar.

Even before the curse broke, she’d see him there almost every night, staring into a glass of whiskey as though it held answers to questions he didn’t quite know how to ask.  And now that they’ve all remembered, life and death in excruciating detail, it’s gotten worse.

Now, he’s there every night, his face that of a man battered and bruised and broken.  He never speaks, neither to the other men nor the lonely women he once courted.  There is something off about him – the way he wields his empty smile like a shield and his bottle like a scythe, cutting back and back and back until nobody dares approach him.  She can sense his pain, taste it in tenseness of his back and the alcohol on his breath.  It is the pain of a broken heart – she knows it all too well.

She cannot let him jump off that bridge, because the water is too dark, too deep, too cold, and she knows he is far too brave to give up.

* * *

After she saves him, he begins to notice her.

It is not her low-cut shirts nor her high boots that draw his attention – it is her wide, brown eyes that drink everything around her, so curious and wishing to explore, her long hair that falls across her face when she concentrates on mixing a difficult drink, her deft fingers that nimbly mix, shake, pour with such precision, she couldn’t be replaced by a machine.

“I _ate_ my boyfriend,” she told him, but she hides her grief so well beneath too-kind smiles and the bright red streak in her hair.  One-night stands march past each other in an endless parade, but she never lets herself become attached.  (He wonders what his name was – her boyfriend, more than just a boyfriend, who shattered her reality like a fragile windowpane.)

He always thought the best way to deal with permanent pain was to ignore it, but he’s no longer quite so sure.

* * *

The night (or morning, four o’clock is morning) after she faces a mob, burning branches and angry faces more animal than she is, she slides into a seat next to him.

He gives her a sidelong glance.  “You look like you could use a drink.”

She buries her face in her arms, hiding her bruised face and the dirt in her hair.  “No,” she says.  “I’m not moving.  I’ll just have to do without.”

Only when she detects movement does she lift her head – finds him knocking about behind the bar, searching for something strong but cheap and easy to put together.

“I’m no bartender, but I can pour vodka,” he tells her, grin too wide to be real (or maybe just wide enough.)  He hands her the glass, and both of them pretend to ignore the spark that flares between their fingers.

He asks her what happened.  She doesn’t answer, but he stays with her until dawn anyway. 

* * *

He wonders why he’s so attracted to her, this woman who bit into her heart and still manages to keep on loving.  It must be – it must be, he thinks, because she is so much braver than he is.  She fights for control against the beast inside and wins, every full moon shining clear is one step farther from the past she can no longer erase.

Running free, running wild.  He wishes he could go with her, keep her company on the long, starlit nights, or at least help her carry the load of blood on her hands she can’t remember.  Wolves are the most noble of monsters – after all, they mourn the dead.

* * *

She asks him whether he would have done it.

It’s late night (or perhaps early morning, who honestly cares) and her voice is the slightest whisper against the broad expanse of his naked back, her breath catching on the sharp panes of his shoulders.

He doesn’t need to question to know what she’s talking about – he can see it so plainly, the dark water surging and reaching so far beneath his toes (so far, but so close, only one step away.)  And he can hear her, almost screaming, begging him to stop.

Her whisper now is not unlike her scream then.  There are the same spaces between her words: _don’t leave, you can’t leave, I can’t do this alone._

Would he have done it, if she hadn’t run up behind him?  Would he have remembered that flimsy promise of a future, or only pictured his brother’s face?

“I don’t know,” he confesses, broken but truthful.

And he shakes as they hold each other tighter.

* * *

She wonders why she’s attracted to him, this man like a broken glass put together all wrong, abrasive edges out to cut anyone who tries to come too close.  It’s probably – probably, she thinks, because he’s the only other one who understands.

Breaking the curse?  Remembering?  It’s not any better than the dull ache of memories lost.  (In so many ways, it’s worse.  She can run and she can run until her limbs give out, but she will never stop fearing her claws.)

* * *

He wakes up to find a wolf on his back porch.

She is so beautiful and so still, her fur glowing faintly in the starlight.  Majestic, he thinks, is the word.  Majestic, royal, like a queen surveying her kingdom and finding it satisfactory.

But then, she bows her head – looks up at him, begging him not to be afraid – not the queen, only a shadow of what the queen could have been.  (She believes that everyone is afraid of her, but in reality, she’s the one afraid of herself.)

“Ruby,” he whispers (like an offering, like a prayer.)

And he kneels down next to her, bare feet scraping cold tiles, and reaches out a hand.  She leans into it, her eyes close.

When she turns back, she seizes him and doesn’t let go.

* * *

Loving him (loving her) is red.

They are not people – they are monsters, they are too-sharp knives, they are bloodstains on the floor.  They are their own demons, and total victory is only amnesia or suicide – they’re tried one and are too brave for the other.

They are painted the red of bleeding hearts.  And yet, somehow, they have to live anyway.

So, they reach for each other in the dark, trace each other’s scars with tentative fingers, capture each other’s lips like prizes not deserved.  They are the whiskey in each other’s shot glasses, a sharp burn going down but a slow warmth in the pit of your stomach.  Maybe, with time, the scars will heal and the blood will fade – she will stop waking up screaming _Peter_ and he will stop seeing his brother’s face in every lost patient.  They can hope.

But for now, this will have to be enough.

* * *

_“Maybe there’s still some stuff you_ can _fix.”_


End file.
